Detention with the Toad

It was the next morning. The trio were having breakfast in the Great Hall. As usual, there were swarms of owls, some were brown, some were black and some, like Bianca, Amelia’s owl, were white. Bianca was spotted through the majority of tawny school owls.

‘Bianca?’ said Amelia confusedly. ‘I swear if this is from Emily-’

Bianca dropped an envelope on her head. She opened it and the trio put their heads together to read the letter. It said:

Hey Amelia, 

Please find an enclosed letter of the Daily Prophet and tell us what you, Olivia, Isabell and Albert think about this nonsense. 

Thanks, 

Ron Weasley

Amelia looked in the envelope and found another parchment. She scanned it quickly, her face getting angrier and angrier by the second. She then handed it to Olivia, Isabell and Albert, who were hesitant to read it as the look on Amelia’s face explained everything. It read:

This is not the first time in recent weeks that the Minister, Cornelius Fudge, has used new laws to effect improvements at the wizarding school. As recently as August 30th, Educational Decree Number Twenty-Two was passed, to ensure that, in the event of the current Headmaster being unable to provide a candidate for a teaching post, the Ministry should select an appropriate person. ‘That's how Dolores Umbridge came to be appointed to the teaching staff at Hogwarts,’ said Percy Weasley last night. ‘Dumbledore couldn't find anyone so the Minister put in Umbridge, and of course, she's been an immediate success-’

‘AN IMMEDIATE WHAT NOW?’ Olivia yelled.

‘More like an immediate failure!’ Isabell groaned. 

It was the next day in the evening. Amelia, Albert, Isabell and Olivia finished all their lessons and were doing the essay for Snape in the Common Room near the library. They waited for the time to hit seven fifty, so that they had time to go to Umbridge’s office. It was finally time and they all nervously went to her office. When they had dinner in the Great Hall, they heard buzzing and chattering about Albert and Harry’s shouting match with Umbridge, which didn’t make Albert and Harry’s dinner pleasant at all. 

The door of Umbridge’s office had been painted rosewood. Amelia knocked on the door three times and heard the familiar girlish voice call out from inside.

‘Come in!’ 

Amelia opened the door and they all entered the office. The surfaces in Professor Umbridge's office were draped in lacy covers and cloths, and several vases of dried flowers stood on doilies around the room. One wall housed a collection of ornamental plates, each decorated with a large technicolour kitten wearing a different bow around its neck. Umbridge was sitting on her desk, drinking a cup of tea from a china cup (which had pink flowers on it). 

‘Ah, you’ve come early. Have a seat,’ Umbridge said, looking at the four chairs placed around a table in the corner. 

They hastily seated themselves around the table and waited for Umbridge to speak.  

‘We didn’t bring quills or ink,’ Amelia said worriedly as she pointed at the blank parchments on the table.

’You’re going to be using rather special ones of mine. Here you are. I want you to write “I must not tell lies”,’ Umbridge replied, adding a girlish giggle at the end. 

She handed them quills, but no ink. 

‘How many times should we write it?’ Olivia asked. 

‘Ah, as long as it takes for the message to… sink in.’

Umbridge then started to look out a window while sipping her tea quietly. Isabell started writing on the parchment as quickly as she could. She let out a gasp of pain. The words had appeared on the parchment in what appeared to be shining red ink. At the same time, the words had appeared on the back of Isabell’s right hand, cut into her skin as though traced there by a scalpel- yet even as she stared at the shining cut, the skin healed over again, leaving the place where it had been slightly redder than before but quite smooth... Isabell looked back at the parchment, placed the quill upon it once more, wrote “I must not tell lies”, and felt the searing pain on the back of her hand for a second time; once again, the words had been cut into her skin, once again they healed over seconds later. And on it went. Again and again Isabell slowly wrote the words on the parchment in what she soon came to realise was not ink, but her own blood. And again and again the words were cut into the back of her hand, healed, and then reappeared the next time she set the quill to the parchment.

Amelia, Olivia and Albert- who hadn’t written anything yet- stared at the words on Isabell’s hand, healing and appearing over and over again. Isabell tried her best not to show any signs that she was suffocating. Umbridge then giggled again and looked at them with a wide smile on her toad-like face. 

‘These quills… are very special, you see. Hurry up, my whole time isn’t about giving detentions. The rest of you should do what Ms. Bluesky has done.’ 

They all gulped and started to place their quills on the parchment. The searing pain was felt as they wrote the first letter. Their blood was magically syphoned on the parchment and the words were getting carved on the back of their right hands. The blistering pain went on and on and on, until everyone had written “I must not tell lies” thirty times. The back of Amelia, Albert, Isabell and Olivia’s right hands had reddened badly and the words barely etched on them. 

‘I see it hasn’t really sunk in. You will continue tomorrow, same time,’ Umbridge said, smiling at them. 

They all went out of her office, nobody saying a word to the other.